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Glass. 
Book, 



THE WINE-PRESS 

A TALE OF WAR 



THE WINE-PRESS 



A TALE OF WAR 



BY 

ALFRED NOYES 

AUTHOR OF 
'tales ©P the mermaid tavern," "SHERWOOD," "DRAKE,** ETC. 




NEW YORK 

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



.o'^.A 






(b^^^ 



Copyright, 1913, by 
Alfred Notes 



All rights reserved 



FIFTH PRINTING 



y£^% 









December, 1913 



DEDICATION 

{To those who believe that Peace is the corrupter 
of nations) 

I 

Peace? When have we prayed for peace? 

Over us burns a star 
Bright, beautiful, red for strife! 
Yours are only the drum and the fife 
And the golden braid and the surface of Hfe. 

Ours is the vrhite-hot war. 

n 

Peace? When have we prayed for peace? 

Ours are the weapons of men. 
Time changes the face of the world. 
Your swords are rust ! Your flags are furled 
And ours are the unseen legions hurled 

Up to the heights again. 

ni 

Peace? When have we prayed for peace? 
Is there no wrong to right? 



vi DEDICATION 

Wrong crying to God on high 
Here where the weak and the helpless die, 
And the homeless hordes of the City go by, 
The ranks are rallied to-night. 

IV 

Peace? When have we prayed for peace? 

Are ye so dazed ^\ith words? 
Earth, heaven, shall pass away 
Ere for your passionless peace we pray. 
Are ye deaf to the trumpets that call us to-day. 

Blind to the blazing swords?. 



PRELUDE 



PRELUDE 



Sandalphon, whose white wings to heaven 
up-bear 

The weight of human prayer, 
Stood silent in the still eternal light 

Of God, one dreadful night. 
His wings were clogged with blood, and foul with 
mire, 

His body seared with fire. 
"Hast thou no word for Me?" the Master said. 

The angel sank his head. 

II 

"Word from the nations of the East and West," 

He moaned, "that blood is best; 
The patriot prayers of either half of earth 

Hear thou, and judge their worth. 
Out of the obscene seas of slaughter, hear 

First, the first nation's prayer : 
' God, deliver Thy people. Let Thy sword 

Destroy our enemies, Lord J 



X PRELUDE 

III 

''Pure as the first, as passionate in trust 

That their own cause is just, 
Puppets as fond in those dark hands of greed, 

As fervent in their creed, 
As bHndly moved, as utterly betrayed, 

As urgent for thine aid, 
Out of the obscene seas of slaughter, hear 

The second nation's prayer: 
' God, deliver Thy people. Let Thy sword 

Destroy our enemies , Lord.'' 



IV 

''Over their slaughtered children, one great cry 

From either enemy; 
From either host, thigh-deep in filth and shame, 

One prayer, one and the same; 
With Thee, with Thee, Lord God of Sabaoth, 

It rests to answer both. 
Out of the obscene seas of slaughter, hear, 

From East and West one prayer: 
'0 God, deliver Thy people. Let Thy sword 

Destroy our enemies, Lord.'^^ 



PRELUDE 



Then, on the cross of His creative pain, 

God bowed His head again. 
Then East and West, over all seas and lands, 

Out-stretched His pierced hands. 
Then, down in hell, they chuckled, ^'West and 
East, 

Each holds one hand, at least ....'' 
"And yet," Sandalphon whispered, "men deny 

The eternal Calvary." 



THE WINE-PRESS 

A TALE OF WAR 



THE WINE-PRESS 



A MTiLDERED man, ten miles away, 

Will hardly shake your peace, 
Like one red stain upon your hand; 
And a tortured child in a distant land 
Will never check one smile to-day, 

Or bid one fiddle cease. 

Not for a little news from hell 

Shall London strive or cry. 
Tho' thought would shatter like d}TLamite 
These granite hills that bury the right, 
We must not think. We must not tell 

The truth for which men die. 

To watch the mouth of a harlot foam 

For the blood of Baptist John 
Is a fine thing while the fiddles play; 
For blood and lust are the mode to-day, 
And lust and blood were the mode of Rome. 

And we go where Rome has gone. 
1 



THE WINE-PRESS 

The plaudits round the circus roll! 

On the old track we swing. 
"Unrest," we say, "is in the air"; 
And a flea is in the lap-dog's chair. 
But the unrest that troubles the soul 

Is a more difficult thing. 

Unrest that has no lot or part 

In anything but truth; 
Unrest, unrest, whose passions draw 
From founts of everlasting law. 
Unrest that nerves the out- worn heart, 

And calls, like God, to youth; 

The truth that tickles no sweet sense, 

The pillow of stone by night. 
Unrest that no man's art can heal, 
Unrest that girds the brain with steel, 
And, over earth's indifference. 
Like God, calls up the light; 

The truth that all might know, but all, 

With one consent, refuse; 
To call on that, to break our pact 
Of silence, were to make men act. 



THE WINE-PRESS 

Good taste forbids that trumpet-call, 
And a censor sends our news. 



It comes along a little wire 

Sunk in a deep sea; 
It thins in the clubs to a little smoke 
Between one joke and another joke; 
For a city in flames is less than the fire 

That comforts you and me. 



Play up, then, fiddles! Play, bassoon! 

The plains are soaked with red. 
Ten thousand slaughtered fools, out there, 
Clutch at their wounds and taint the air, 
And . . . here is an excellent cartoon 

On what the Kaiser said. 



On with the dance ! In England yet 
The meadow-grass is green. 

Play up, play up, and play your part! 

It is not that we lack the heart 

But that fate deftly swings the net 
And blood is best unseen. 



THE WINE-PRESS 

God shields our eyes from too much light, 

Clothes the fine brain with clay; 
He wraps mankind in swaddling bands 
Till the trumpet ring across all lands — 
"The time is come to stand upright, 
And flood the world with day.'^ 

Not yet, O God, not yet the gleam 

When all the world shall wake! 
Grey and immense comes up the dawn 
And yet the blinds are not withdrawn. 
And, in the dusk, one hideous dream 
Forbids the day to break! 

Around a shining table sat 

Five men in black tail-coats; 
And, what their sin was, none could say; 
For each was honest, after his way, 
(Tho' there are sheep, and armament firms, 

With all that this "connotes")- 

One was the friend of a merchant prince. 

One was the foe of a priest. 
One had a brother whose heart was set 
On a gold star and an epaulette. 
And — where the rotten carcass lies. 

The vultures flock to feast. 



THE WIXE-PRESS I 

But — each was honest after his way, 

Lukewarm in faith, and old; 
.-Vnd blood, to them, was only a word, 
.\nd the point of a phrase their only sword, 
.\nd the cost of war, they reckoned it 

In Httle disks of cfold. 



They were cleanly groomed. They were not 
to be bought. 

And their cigars vrere good. 
But they had pulled so many strings 
In the dnselled puppet-show of kings 
That, when they talked of war, they thought 

Of sawdust, not of blood; 



Xot of the crimson tempest 

WTiere the shattered city falls: 
They thought, behind their varnished doors, 
Of diplomats, ambassadors. 
Budgets, and loans and boimdar}'-lines, 

Coercions and re-caUs; 

Forces and Balances of Power; 
Shadows and dreams and dust; 



THE WINE-PRESS 



And how to set their bond aside 
And prove they lied not when they lied, 
And which was weak, and which was strong, 
But — never which was just. 



Yet they were honest, honest men. 

Justice could take no wrong. 
The blind arbitrament of steel, 
The mailed hand, the armoured heel, 
Could only prove that Justice reigned 

And that her hands were strong. 



For they were strong. So might is right, 

And reason wins the day. 
And, if at a touch on a silver bell 
They plunged three nations into hell, 
The blood of peasants is not red 

A hundred miles away. 



But, if one touch on a silver bell 
Should loose, beyond control, 
A blind immeasurable flood 
Of lust and hate and tears and blood, 



THE WINE-PRESS 

Unknown immeasurable powers 
That swept to an imseen goal, 

Beyond their guidance for one hour, 

Beyond their utmost ken, 
No huddled madman, crowned with straw, 
Could so transgress his own last law . . . 
So a secretary struck the bell 

For these five honest men. 



II 



With brown arms folded, by his hut, Johann, 

The yoimg wood-cutter, waited. A bell tolled. 
The sunset fires along the moimtain ran, 



The bucket at the well dripped a thin gold, 

He saw the peaks like clouds of lilac bloom 
Above him, then the pine-woods, fold on fold. 



Around him, slowly filled with deep blue gloom. 
Sleep, Dodi, sleep, he heard his young wife say. 
Hushing their child behind him in the room. 



THE WINE-PRESS 



Then, like a cottage casement, far away, 

A star thrilled in a pale green space of sky; 
And then, like stars, with tiny ray on ray, 



He saw the homely village-lights reply: 

And earth and sky were mingled in one night. 
And all that vast dissolving pageantry 



Drew to those quintessential points of light. 

Still as the windless candles in a shrine. 
Significant in the depth as in the height. 



0, little blue pigeon, sleep. Sleep, Dodi mine, 

She murmured. Sleep, little rose in your rosy bed. 
The moon is rocking, rocking to rest in the pine. 



Sleep, little blue pigeon, 

Sleep on my breast. 
Sleep, while the stars shine, 
Sleep, while the big pine 
Rocks with the white moon, 
Over your nest. 



THE WINE-PRESS 9 

A great grey cloud sailed slowly overhead. 

She stood behind Johann. Around his eyes 
Her soft hands closed. ^^ Dodi's asleep/' she said. 



He drew her hands away. Then, as the skies 
Darkened, he muttered, ^'Sonia, you must 
know. 
I've kept the news from you all day." 



Surprise 
Parted her lips. 

"To-morrow I must go." 

"Go? Where?" Clear as a silver bell, one 

star 
Thrilled thro' the clouds. Her face looked 
white as snow. 



To-morrow morning, Sonia. No, not far! 



To join the regiment. We are called, you see." — 

"But why? What does it mean?" 

"Mean, Sonia? War!" 



10 THE WINE-PRESS 



III 



The troop-train couplings clanged like Fate 

Above the bugles' din. 
Sweating beneath their haversacks, 
With rifles bristling on their backs, 
Like heavy-footed oxen 

The dusty men trooped in. 

It seemed that some gigantic hand 

Behind the veils of sky 
Was driving, herding all these men 
Like cattle into a cattle-pen, 
So few of them could understand, 

So many of them must die. 

Johann was crammed into his truck. 

Far off, he heard a shout. 
The corporal cracked a bottle of wine, 
And passed the drink along the line. 
The iron couplings clanged again. 

And the troop-train rumbled out. 

"I left my wife a month's pay," 
A voice droned at his side. 



THE WINE-PRESS 11 

"This war, they say, will last a year. 
God knows what will become of her, 
With three to feed.''— "Ah, that's the way 
In war," Johann repHed. 



"They say that war's a noble thing! 

They say it's good to die. 
For causes none can understand! 
They say it's for the Fatherland! 
They say it's for the Flag, the King, 

And none must question why!" 

The train shrieked into a tunnel. 

"Duty? — Yes, that is good. 
But when the thing has grown so vast 
That no man knows, from first to last, 
The reason why he finds himself 

Up to his neck in blood; 



"When you are trapped and carried along 

By a Power that runs on rails; 
Why, open that door, my friends, and see 
The way you are fixed. You think you are 
free. 



12 THE WINE-PRESS 

But the iron wheels are singing a song 
That stuns our fairy-tales; 



"When you are lifted up like this 

Between a finger and thumb, 
And dropt you don't know where or why, 
And told to shoot and butcher and die, 
And not to question, not to reply, 
But go like a sheep to the shearers, 
A lamb to the slaughter, dumb; 



"What? Are the engines, then, our God? 

Does one amongst you know 
The reason of this bitter work?" — 
"Reason? The devilry of the Turk! 
Lock, stock, and barrel, the Sick Man 

And all his tribe must go." 



"England, they say, is on our side," 

Another voice began. 
"The paper says it."— "But, I thought . 
Does no one know why England fought 



THE WINE-PRESS 13 

The great Crimean war, my friends, 
Where blood so freely ran?'' — 



"0, ay! They say that England backed 
The wrong horse, a sheer blunder! 

She poured out blood to guarantee, 

For all time, the integrity 

Of European IslamJ'—'' AhV— 
The train rolled on like thunder. 



Michael, the poet, a half Greek, 
Listened to what they said. 

Twice his lips parted as to speak, 
And twice he sank his head. 

Then a great fire burned in his eyes, 
His shallow cheek flushed red. 



" Comrades, comrades, you know not 

The banners that you bear ! 
There is a sword upon our side, 
A sword that is a song,'' he cried; 
Then, through the song, as he whispered it, 

His heart poured Hke a prayer: 



14 THE WINE-PRESS 



"Whose face, whose on high, 

Lifts thro' the sky 

That aureole? 
Who, over earth and sea, 

Cries Victory? 

Europe, thy soul 
Comes home to thee. 

II 

'^ Is it a dream, a cloud 

That thus hath rent the shroud 

To speak, sublime and proud. 

Thy faith aloud; 
Whose eyes make young and fair 
All things in earth and air; 
The shadow of whose white wing 

Makes violets spring? 

Ill 

"Is it the angel of day. 
Whom the blind pray 
Still that their faith 



THE WINE-PRESS 15 



Soundly sleep by night? 
Blood-red, yet white, 
Re-risen, she saith 
Let there be Light! 



IV 

"Whose are the conquering eyes 
That burn thro' those dark skies? 
Whose is the voice that cries 

Awake J arise? 
For, if she speak one word 
To sheathe or draw the sword, 
Her nations, on that day, 

Answer her, Yea! 



" It is the angel of God, . 

Sun-crowned, fire-shod. 

Bidding hate cease. 
Her proud voice on high 

Bids darkness die. 

Her name is Greece, 

Or Liberty. 



16 THE WINE-PRESS 

^^ Comrades, ^^ he cried, ^^you know not 

The splendour of your blades! 
This war is not as other wars: 
The night shrinks with all her stars, 
And Freedom rides before you 
On the last of the Crusades, : 



"She rides a snow-white charger 
Tho^ her flanks drip with red, 
Before her blade^s white levin 
The Crescent pales in heaven, 
Nor shall she shrink from battle 
Till the sun reign overhead; 

Till the dead Cross break in blossom; 

Till the God we sacrificed, 
With that same love He gave us, 
Stretch out His arms to save us. 
Yea, till God save the People, 

And heal the wounds of Christ,''^ - 



IV 



They crept across the valley 

Where the wheat was turning brown. 



THE WINE-PRESS 17 

There was no cloud in the blue sky, 
No sight, no sound of an enemy, 
When the sharp command rang over them, 
Cover! and Lie down! 



Johann, with four beside him, 

In a cottage garden lay. 
Peering over a little wall, 
They heard a bird in the eaves call: 
And, through the door, a clock ticked, 

A thousand miles away. 

A thousand miles, a thousand years, 

And all so still and fair. 
Then, Hke some huge invisible train, 
SpHtting the blue heavens in twain. 
Out of the quiet distance rushed 

A thunder of shrieking air. 

The earth shook below them. 
And lightnings lashed the sky. 

The trees danced in the fires of hell. 

The walls burst like a bursting shell; 

And a bloody mouth gnawed at the stones 
Like a rat, with a thin cry. 



18 THE WINE-PRESS 

Then, all across the valley, 

Deep silence reigned anew: 
There was no cloud in the blue sky, 
No sight, no sound of an enemy 
But the red, wet shape beside Johann, 
And that lay silent, too. 



A bugle like a scourge of brass 

Whipped thro' nerve and brain; 
Up from their iron-furrowed beds 
The long lines with bowed heads 
Plunged to meet the hidden Death 
Across the naked plain. 



They leapt across the lewd flesh 

That twdsted at their feet; 
They leapt across wild shapes that lay 
Stark, besmeared with blood and clay 
Like the great dead birds, with the glazed eyes. 

That the farmer hangs in the wheat. 



Johann plunged onv/ard, counting them, 
Scarecrows that once were men. 



THE WINE-PRESS 19 

He counted them by twos, by fours, 
Then, all at once, by tens, by scores! 
Cover! Thro' flesh and nerve and bone 
The bugles rang again. 

They lay upon the naked earth, 

Each in his place. 
There was no cloud in the blue sky, 
No sight, no sound of an enemy. 
A bro-^TL bee murmured near Johann, 

And the sweat streamed do\\Ti his face; 

The quiet hills that they must storm 

Slept softly overhead, 
WTien, in among their sun-Ht trees 
A sound as of gigantic bees 
Whirred, and all the plains were ripped 

With leaping streaks of lead. 



The Kghtnings leapt among the lines 

Like a mountain-stream in flood. 
Scattering the red clay they ran 
A river of fire around Johann, 
And, thrice, a spatter of human flesh 
Blinded him Vvith blood. 



20 THE WINE-PRESS 

Then all the hills grew quiet 
And the sun slept on the field, 

There was no cloud in the blue sky, 

No sight, no sound of an enemy; 

But, over them, like a scourge of brass 
The scornful bugles pealed. 



Forward! At the double, 

Not questioning what it means! 
The long rows of young men 
Carried their quivering flesh again 
Over those wide inhuman zones 
Against the cold machines. 



Flesh against things fleshless, 

Never the soul^s desire, 
Never the flash of steel on steel, 
But the brain that is mangled under the 

wheel. 
The nerves that shrivel, the limbs that reel 

Against a sheet of fire. 



They reeled against the thunder. 
Their captain at their head: 



THE WINE-PRESS 21 

They reeled, they clutched at the air, they fell! 
Halt! Rapid fire! The bugles' yell 
Rang along the swaying ranks, 
And they crouched behind their dead. 



The levelled rifles cracked like whips 
Against the dark hill bro^v: 

And, for a peasant as for a king, 

A dead man makes good covering; 

Or, if the man be breathing yet, 
There is none to save him now. 



Across a heap of flesh, Johann 

Fired at the unseen mark. 
He had not fired a dozen rounds 
When the shuddering lump of tattered wounds 
Lifted up a mangled head 

And whined, Hke a child, in the dark. 



Its eyes were out. The raw strings 

Along its face lay red; 
It caught the barrel in its hands 

And set it to its head. 



22 THE WINE-PRESS 

Its jaw dropped dumbly, but Johann 

Saw and understood: 
The rifle flashed, and the dead man 

Lay quiet in his blood. 



Then all along the reeking hills 

And up the dark ravines, 
The long rows of young men 
Leapt in the glory of Hfe again 
To carry their warm and breathing breasts 

Against the cold machines; 



Against the Death that mowed them down 

With a cold indifferent hand; 
And every gap at once was fed 
With more life from the fountain-head, 
Filled up from endless ranks behind 

In the name of the Fatherland. 



Mown down! Mown down! Mown 
down! Mown down! 
They staggered in sheets of fire, 



THE WINE-PRESS 23 

They reeled like ships in a sudden blast, 
And shreds of flesh went spattering past, 
And the hoarse bugles laughed on high, 
Like fiends from hell — Retire! 



The tall young men, the tall young men. 

That were so fain to die, 
It was not theirs to question, 

It was not theirs to reply. 



They had broken their hearts on the 
cold machines; 

And — they had not seen their foe; 
And the reason of this butcher's work 

It was not theirs to know; 
For these tall young men were children 

Five short years ago. 

Headlong, headlong, down the hill. 

They leapt across their dead. 
Like madmen, wrapt in sheets of flame, 
YeUing out of their hell they came. 
And, in among their plunging hordes, 
The shrapnel burst and spread. 



24 THE WINE-PRESS 

The shrapnel severed the leaping limbs 

And shrieked above their flight. 
They rolled and plunged and writhed like snakes 
In the red hill-brooks and the blackthorn brakes. 
Their mangled bodies tumbled Hke elves 

In a wild Walpurgis night. 

Slaughter! Slaughter! Slaughter! 

The cold machines whirred on. 
And strange things crawled amongst the wheat 
With entrails dragging round their feet, 
And over the foul red shambles 

A fearful sunlight shone. 

And a remnant reached the trenches 
Where the black-mouthed guns lay still. 

There was no cloud in the blue sky, 

No sight, no sound of an enemy. 

The sunlight slept on the valley. 
And the dead slept on the hill. 



But now, beyond the hill, there rose 
A dull and sullen roar, 



THE WINE-PRESS 25 

A sound as of distant breakers 

That burst on a granite shore. 
Nearer it boomed and nearer, 

A muffled doomsday din, 
A thunder as of assaulting seas 

When the tides are roUing in. 

A corporal leapt along the trench 

And shook his blade; 
*'God sends the Greeks up from the South 

In good time to our aid! 



''The Turkish dogs are in the trap 

Between us I God is good! 
They are driving them over the ridge of the hill 
For our guns, our guns to work their will. 
Children of Marko, you shall lap 

Your bellyful of blood.'' 



Down, the dark clouds of Islam poured 

Over the ragged height: 
Down, into the valley of wheat. 
And the warm dead that lay at their feet, 



26 THE WINE-PRESS 

The men they had slaughtered, slaughtered, 
slaughtered, 
Grinned up at their flight. 



Behind, the conquering thunders rolled 

Along the abandoned hill. 
Onward the scattering squadrons came 
Like madmen, wrapt in a sheet of flame, 
Straight for the lurking trenches, 

Where the black-mouthed guns lay still. 



And through the masked artillery ran 
A whimper of straining hounds. 

'^Not yet," the order passed; "lie still, 
Lie still, and lick your wounds." 



Johann lay quivering, in a line 

That whined like a leashed wolf-pack, 
Leashed by a whisper, sharp as a sword. 
At the white of their eyes, I give the word, 
Then let the sun he turned to blood, 
And the face of God grow black. 



THE WINE-PRESS 27 

Up, up, like plunging bullocks 

The dark-faced Moslems came. 
Johann could see their wild eyes shine, 
An order hissed along the line. 
The black earth yawned like a crimson mouth, 
And slaughter, slaughter, slaughter, slaughter, 

The trenches belched their flame. 



The maxims cracked Hke cattle-whips 

Above the struggling hordes. 
They rolled and plunged and writhed like snakes 
In the trampled wheat and the blackthorn brakes, 
And the hghtnings leapt among them 

Like clashing crimson swords. 

The rifles flogged their wallowing herds, 

Flogged them do\\Ti to die. 
Down on their slain the slayers lay, 
And the shrapnel thrashed them into the clay. 
And tossed their limbs like tattered birds 

Thro' a red volcanic sky. 

Then, hard behind the thunder, swept 
Long ranks of arrowy gleams; 



^8 THE WINE-PRESS 

Out of the trenches, down the hill 
The level bayonets charged to kill, 
And the massed terror that took the shock 
Screamed as a woman screams. 



Before Johann a yoimg face rose 

Like a remembered prayer; 
He could not halt or swerve aside 
In the onrush of that murderous tide, 
He jerked his bayonet out of the body 
And swimg his butt in the air. 



He yelled hke a wolf to drown the cry 

Of his own soul in pain. 
To stifle the God in his owm breast, 
He yelled and cursed and struck vvdth the rest, 
And the blood bubbled over his boots 

And greased his hands again. 



Faces like drowned things underfoot 
SHpped as he swimg round: 

A red mouth crackled beneath his boot 
Like thorns in spongy ground. 



THE WINE-PRESS 29 

Slaughter? Slaughter? So easy it seemed, 
This work that he thought so hard ! 

His eyes Ht with a flicker of hell, 

Re licked his hps, and it tasted well; 

And — once — he had sickened to watch them 
slaughter 
An ox in the cattle-yard. 

For lust of blood, for lust of blood, 

His greasy bludgeon swTing: 
His rifle-butt sang in the air, 
And the things that crashed beneath it there 
Were a cluster of grapes in the mne-press, 

A savour of wine on his tongue. 

Till now the allies' bloody hands 

Across the work could join; 
And, as Johann stretched out his own, 
A man that was cleft to the white breast-bone 
Writhed up between his knees and flred 

A bullet into his groin. 



He clutched at the wound. He groaned. He fell 
On the warm breasts of the slain. 



so THE WINE-PRESS 

Yet, as he swooned, he dreamed he heard 
From the lips of Greece one thunder-word. 
Freedom! — dreamed that the sons of the mountain 
Doubled the shout again; 

Dreamed — for surely this was a dream — 

He saw them, red from the fight. 
Embraced and sobbing, " God is good. 
And the blood that seals our brotherhood 
Is the red of the dawn that breaks upon Europe.'' 

Over him swept the night. 



Michael had brought a message home. He came, 
Groping, with blind pits where his eyes had 
been. 
And a face glorious with an inner flame, 

Whiter than death, and proud with things unseen. 

He came to Sonia; and she stood there, wan, 
Watching him, wondering what such pride might 
mean 



THE WINE-PRESS 31 



A long low flame along the mountains ran. 
He spoke to the air beyond her. 



"5(?ma/' he said, 
"/^ was your birthday when I left Johann 



In the field-hospital. Since you were wed, 

The first, perhaps, without some fond word 
spoken. 

Some gift. And so he sent this disk of lead 

Which came out of his wound. Wear it in token 
That lovers cannot meet, nor freemen rest, 

Until the chains of tyranny he broken. 



Tell her,^^ he said — blood washed the golden 

west — 
'^My wound is healing fast.^^ With fumbling 

hand 
Michael drew out the bullet from his breast. 



She took and kissed it. 



32 THE WINE-PRESS 

' * Ah, but this war is grand 1" 
The blind man murmured. "Blessed are they 
that see 
The beautiful angel of our Fatherland, 



"The glory of the angel of Liberty 

Walking thro' all those teeming tents of pain, 
The tattered hospitals of our agony, 



"Where broken men gaze into her eyes again. 

Like happy children. Sonia, I am told 
That wounds broke open for joy, tears flowed 
like rain 



"When word came that the Allies would soon 
hold 
Byzantium, and the mosque that in old days 
Belonged to Christ. 

There, glimmering like pale gold. 



THE WINE-PRESS 33 

"High on the walls, they say, thro' a worn haze 
Of whitewash. His crowned Face till time shall 
cease 
Looks down in pity on all our tangled ways, 



"And yearns to guide us into the way of peace. 
Would God I might be with them, when they 
ride, 
Those hosts of Christ, the Balkan States and 
Greece, 



"Along the Golden HornP' 

The sunset died. 
Yet his blind face grew glorious with light, 
And, like a soul in ecstasy, he cried: 



**The Prophet is fallen! His kingdom is rent 

asunder ! 
The blood-stained steeds move on with a sound of 

thunder ! 
The sword of the Prophet is broken. His cannon 

are dumb. 
The last Crusade rides into Byzantium! 



34 THE WINE-PRESS 

^'See — on the walls that enshrined the high 

faith of our fathers — 
Rich as the dawn thro' the mist that on Bospho- 

rus gathers, 
Gleam the mosaics, the rich encrustations of old, 
Crimson on emerald, azure and opal on gold. 



"Faint thro' that mist, lo, the Light of the World, 

the forsaken 
Glory of Christ, while with terror the mountains 

are shaken. 
Silently waits; and the skies with wild trumpets 

are torn; 
Waits, and the rivers run red to the Golden Horn; 



"Waits, like the splendour of Truth on the walls 

of Creation; 
Waits, with the Beauty, the Passion, the high 

Consecration, 
Hidden away on the walls of the world, in a cloud. 
Till the Veil be rent, and the Judgment proclaim 

Him aloud. 



THE WINE-PRESS 35 

"Ah, the deep eyes, San Sofia, that deepen and 

gHsten; 
Ah, the crowned Face o'er thine altars, the 

King that must listen, 
Listen and wait thro' the ages, Hsten and wait, 
For the tramp of a terrible host, and a shout in 

the gate! 



"Conquerors, what is your sign, as ye ride thro' 

the City? 
Is it the sword of wrath, or the sheath of pity? 
Nay, but a Sword Reversed, let your hilts on 

high 
Lift the sign of your Captain against the sky! ' 



"Reverse the Sword! The Crescent is rent 

asunder 1 
Lift up the Hilt! Ride on with a sound of 

thunder ! 
Lift up the Cross! The cannon, the cannon are 

dumb. 
The last Crusade rides into Byzantium!" 



36 THE WINE-PRESS 

Under the apple-tree a shadow stirred. 

An old grey peasant stood there in the night. 
"Michael,^^ he said, '^this is bad news we've heardl'^ 



''Bad news?^^ — "O, ay^ we^re in a pretty plight! 
They^ve quarrelledr — ''Who?^^ — ''Your great 
Crusading hand, 
Greece, and the Balkan States, They re going to 

fightr 



—"Fight? Fight? For what?''—" Why, donH you 
understand 
What war is? For a port to export prunes, 
For Christ, my hoy, and for the Fatherland!'' 



VI 



Johann had left the tents of death 
And the moan of shattered men. 

By God's own grace he was fit to face 
The cold machines again. 



THE WINE-PRESS 37 

It was not his to understand, 

It was only his to know 
His hand was against the comrade's hand 

He clasped, a month ago. 

It was not his to question, 

It was not his to reply; 
But, over him, the night grew black; 
And his own troop was falling back, 
Falling back before the flag 

He had helped to raise on high. 

And the guns, the guns that drove them, 

Had thundered with his own! 
The men he must kill for a little pay 
Had marched beside him, yesterday ! 
Brothers in blood! By what foul lips 

Was this war- trumpet blown? 

Back from the heights they had stormed together, 
The gulfs that had gorged their dead, 

Back, by the rotting, shot-ripped plain, 

Where the black wings fluttered and perched 
again. 

And the yellow beaks in the darkness 
Ripped and dripped and fed. 



38 THE WINE-PRESS 

And once they stayed for water 

By a deep marble well, 
Under the walls of a shattered town 
They dropt a guttering pine-torch down, 
And caught one glimpse of a wine-press 

Choked with the fruits of hell; 

One glimpse of the women and children, 

A tangle of red and white! 
The naked fruitage hissed in the glare : 
They caught the smell of the singeing hair, 
And the torch was out, and the wine-press 

Black as the covering night. 

And fear went with them down the roads 
Where they had marched in pride; 

And villages in panic rout 

Poured their rumbling ox-carts out, 

And women dropped beneath their loads 
And sobbed by the wayside. 

vn 

Once, as with bleeding feet they shambled along, 
They came on a wayside fire, a ring of light, 



THE WINE-PRESS 39 

Where old men, women and children, a motley 
throng, 



And their white oxen, heavy with day-long flight, 
Crouched and couched together, on the cold 
ground, 
In a w^ld blaze of beauty that gashed the night, 

Gashed and tattered the gloom like a blood-red 

wound. 
Now on a blue or an orange sheepskin cloak 
It splashed, and now on the wagons that 

shadowed them round. 

But the great black eyes of the oxen, forgetting 

the yoke. 
Shone vdth a sheltering pity, so meek, so mild. 
While the women lay resting against them; and 

the smoke 



Rolled with the cloud; and Johann, with a heart 
running \\dld, 
Saw one pale woman that sat in the midst of 
them, 



40 THE WINE-PRESS 

With a dark-blue robe wrapped round her, 

suckHng a child. 
And he thought of the child and the oxen of 

Bethlehem. 



VIII 

Back, they fell back before the guns, 

Till on one last dark night 
They lay along a mountain-ridge 

Entrenched for their last fight. 
A pine-wood rolled below them, 

And the moon was all their light. 

Johann looked down, in a wild dream, 

On that remembered place: 
O, like a ghost, he saw once more 
The path that led to his own door, 
A white thread, winding thro' the pines. 

And the tears ran down his face. 



A ghost on guard among the dead 

With a heart running wild. 
For the light of a little window-pane 



THE WINE-PRESS 41 

And all the sorrow of earth again, 
A crust of bread, a head on his breast, 
And the cry of his own child; 



The cup of cold water 

That Love would change to wine . . 
Sonia! Dodi! O, to creep back! . . . 
There was a cry in the woods, the crack 
Of a pistol, and a startled shout, 

Halt! Give the countersign! 

Then all the black unguarded woods 
Behind them spat red flame. 

A thousand rifles shattered the night; 

And, after the lightning, up the height, 

A thousand steady shafts of light, 
The moonlit bayonets came. 



Hurled to the trench by the storm of steel 

Under a heap of the slain, 
Like one quick nerve in that welter of death, 
Johann quivered, blood choked his breath. 
And the charge broke over him like a sea. 

And passed like a hurricane. 



42 



THE WINE-PRESS 



He crept out in the ghastly moon 

By a black tarpaulined gun. 
He stood alone on the moaning height 
While the bayonets flashed behind the flight, 
''Sonia! Dodir ... He turned. He broke 

For the path, with a stumbling run. 



Down by the little white moon-lit thread, 
He rushed thro' the ghostly wood, 

A living man in a world of the dead, 
To the place where his own home stood. 



For War had "trained'' him, strengthened his 
heart 

To bear that glory again: 
And he was "fitted" to play his part 

At last, in a "world of men." 



The embers of his hut still burned; 

And, in the deep blue gloom. 
His bursting eyeballs yet could see 
A white shape under the apple-tree, 



THE WINE-PRESS 43 

A naked body, dabbled with red, 
Like a drift of apple-bloom. 



She lay like a broken sacrament 
That the dogs have defiled, 

^^Sonia! Sonia! Speak to meP^ 
He babbled like a child. 



The child, the child that lay on her knees. . 

Devil nor man may name 
The things that Europe must not print, 
But only whisper and chuckle and hint. 
Lest the soul of Europe rise in thunder 

And swords melt in the flame. 



She bore the stigmata of sins 
That devil nor man may tell; 

For O, good taste, good taste, good taste, 
Constrains and serves us well; 

And the censored truth that dies on earth 
Is the crown of the lords of hell. 



44 THE WINE-PRESS 

The quiet moon sailed slowly out 

From a grey cloud overhead, 
When, out of the gnarled old apple-tree 
There came a moan and, heavily 
A patter of blood fell, gout by gout 
On the white breast of the dead. 



There came a moan from the apple-tree, 

And the moon showed him there, — 
The blind man with his arms stretched wide, 
And a nail thro' his hand on either side, 
A nail thro' the naked palms of his feet 
And a crown of thorns in his hair. 



Johann knelt down before him, 

"O brother, O Son of Man, 
It was not ours to doubt or reply 
When the people were led out to die, 
This, this is the end of our Liberty, 
And the goal for which we ran. 



{ 



THE WINE-PRESS 45 

^^Oy Christ of the little children. . . .'' 

Over his naked blade 
Johann bowed, bowed and fell, 
Gasping, '^Sonia, Dodi, tell 
Your God in heaven, I grow so weary 

Of all that He has made.'^ 



Then, still as frost across the world 

The tender moonlight spread. 
And, one by one, from the apple-tree 
The drops of blood fell heavily, 
And the blind man that was crucified 
Spake softly, to the dead. 



^^ Conquered, we shall conquer! 

They have 7iot hurt the soul. 
For there is another Captain 

Whose legions round us roll. 
Battling across the wastes of Death 

Till all he healed and whole. 



" Till, members of one Body, 
Our agony shall cease; 



46 THE WINE-PRESS 

Till, like a song thro^ chaos, 
His marching worlds increase; 

Till the souls that sit in darkness 
Behold the Prince of Peace; 

" Till the dead Cross break in blossom; 

Till the God we sacrificed, 
With that same love He gave us, 
Stretch out His arms to save us, 
Yea, till God save the People, 

And heal the wounds of Christo^^ 



I 



EPILOGUE 
THE DAWN OF PEACE 

Yes "on our brows we feel the breath 

Of dawn/' though in the night we wait! 
An arrow is in the heart of Death, 

A God is at the doors of Fate ! 
The Spirit that moved upon the Deep 

Is moving through the minds of men: 
The nations feel it in their sleep. 

A change has touched their dreams again. 



Voices, confused and faint, arise. 

Troubling their hearts from East and West 
A doubtful light is in their skies, 

A gleam that will not let them rest: 
The dawn, the dawn is on the wing, 

The stir of change on every side, 
Unsignalled as the approach of Spring, 

Invincible as the hawthorn-tideo 

47 



48 EPILOGUE 

Have ye not heard, tho' darkness reigns, 

A People's voice across the gloom, 
A distant thunder of rending chains, 

And nations rising from their tomb, 
Then — ^if ye will — uplift your word 

Of cynic wisdom, till night fail. 
Tell us He came to bring a sword. 

Spit poison in the Holy Grail. 

Say that we dream! Our dreams have woven 

Truths that out-face the burning sun: 
The lightnings, that we dreamed, have cloven 

Time, space, and Hnked all lands in one I 
Dreams! But their swift celestial fingers 

Have knit the world with threads of steel. 
Till no remotest island lingers 

Outside the world's great Commonweal. 

Tell us that custom, sloth, and fear 

Are strong, then name them "common sense" ! 
Tell us that greed rules everywhere, 

Then dub the lie "experience": 
Year after year, age after age, 

Has handed down, thro' fool and child, 
For earth's divinest heritage 

The dreams whereon old wisdom smiled. 



EPILOGUE 49 

Dreams are they? But ye cannot stay them, 

Or thrust the da\^^l back for one hour! 
Truth, Love, and Justice, if ye slay them. 

Return with more than earthly power: 
Strive, if ye will, to seal the fountains 

That send the Spring thro' leaf and spray: 
Drive back the sun from the Eastern mountains, 

Then — bid this mightier movement stay. 

It is the Dawn! The Dawn! The nations 

From East to West have heard a cry, 

Though all earth's blood-red generations 

By hate and slaughter climbed thus high, 
Here — on this height — still to aspire, 

One only path remains untrod. 
One path of love and peace cHmbs higher. 

Make straight that highway for our God. 



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